Red Dog: True Blue

Good family movie and sad at the end....................

A charming friendship story, a love story, good acting, supernatural events, humor and magic and few sadness and the perfect end. A film for entire family, inspired by an Australian legend. It is difficult to say more because it is one of films with precise purpose , precise target and precise...dog. So, a charming film. And the best part , for me, remains the great Australian landscapes.

The scene cuts in this were really strange, one of the first things I noticed. They just didn't seem to flow and made the movie feel choppy? The acting in this movie was very subpar which really surprised me? When I saw the cast I thought I was in for a treat but no? The jokes seemed very forced and fell flat nearly every time. It almost felt like people from overseas trying to write Aussie "jokes". I didn't understand the supernatural aspect of this movie, I assume that bit was just the older Mike trying to spook his son maybe. But it just didn't seem to make sense and felt out of place (again). The ending was genuinely sad but I couldn't help but feel the whole time watching it "I know you're just trying to make me feel the same thing I felt in the first" so it just didn't do the same for me.

But my main annoyance with this movie was Red Dog. In the 1st Red Dog, Red (or blue I guess) always seemed to have a place, his presence pushed the movie along and brought people together. His presence in the movie made sense and brought together all the central conflicts and helped resolve them.

In Red Dog 2, Blues presence does nothing but provide a cute face. This movie was honestly just a coming of age movie and you could have removed the dog and nothing would really change? His presence really did nothing to push the movie along and it wasn't until nearly the end that he actually did something. Also in this movie Blues presence makes barely any impact on anyone but Mike. In the 1st he connected with everyone he came into contact with (even the "evil" cat!), but in this, nothing? It was just bizarre. Look I'm not going to be entirely negative. This is a perfectly watchable movie, I would by no means walk out of it and I had a pretty enjoyable time watching it. As a film by itself, it's fine. Just compared to the first movie you can't help but see all the downfalls about this film.

Red Dog was a beautiful, emotionally moving, incredible tribute to a real dogs undying loyalty. I actually cry thinking about that movie I'm not even joking. In fact in the opening scene when you see the devastating montage of the first I legitimately started bawling just remembering it with the music. Red Dog: True Blue just doesn't contain that same magic that tugs at the heart strings. You can tell it's desperatley trying to do that but just falls flat and seems like a typical cash grab. I feel the director and writers genuinely tried to live up to the former magic but let's be honest, you can't beat the first and I tend to go by this rule with movies, if it's not broke don't try to fix it.

This was a nice "doggie" story but fairly predictable and did not seem to relate much to the original story in the book.

One question that comes to mind also is how much research did the film crew do on props? This was a period story set in the late sixties / early seventies. The cars and (e.g.) suitcases looked authentic, but what about the guitar that Stemple (the young stock man) was often seen playing? This looked to me like a modern Maton guitar! There are are hundreds of vintage Maton guitars out there, so why not use one from the correct period?.

These days if you are going to make a period story set forty years ago, at least make a bit more effort with the props!

I feel bad having to give only a five rating as the lead character was a young person who acted his heart out and did so well but the movie doesn't deserve a higher ranking. I would have enjoyed it ever so much more if it didn't have the feel of movie-making by numbers: we must have some homosexual characters, we must knock Christians (this time mission nuns), we must have mystical Aboriginals etc... political correctness will be the death of good story telling. There is nothing wrong with each of these individually but it felt contrived as if the director had to get them on screen somehow.

And as much as I love stories about dogs I felt this one tried to milk that good will too much. The dog chasing the plane when the boy leaves, it was all too much. Maybe I would give it a higher rating if it hadn't been called Red Dog as it felt like a blatant cashing-in on that crazily enjoyable film.

This wasn't a story about the dog it was a story about a boy becoming a man. Great scenery, great acting and great dog it just didn't come together as a good story.